Second Harvest Heartland of Minnesota announced last week that it would invest $13.2 million into smoothing out racial disparities in the way it distributes food, partly by making food more accessible and appealing to communities of color. The commitment, which will roll out over five years, covers a wide breadth…
Posts published in “Strategy”
A number of small-scale farms have taken root at food banks and pantries across the country. Paradoxically, those who work on them will be the first to tell you that growing food for its own sake is not necessarily a top priority. “Obviously, in serving 200 people a day, the…
In an outgrowth of the pandemic, food banks from New Hampshire to Texas to California are starting to permanently drop fees typically imposed on pantries. When Covid first hit, food banks began temporarily lifting the shared maintenance fees pantries pay to food banks to help defray the costs of transporting,…
After decades of relying on donated food, food banks are starting to place more emphasis on purchasing food. The trend appears to be an outgrowth of Covid, which forced food banks to purchase food by the truckload as constricted supply chains put the squeeze on donated food. The purchases, along…
The Greater Chicago Food Depository is redefining itself. The nation’s 12th-largest food bank is in the beginning stages of a multi-year, multi-tiered strategy aimed at building connections with community groups that have deep roots in the city’s most vulnerable neighborhoods. The goal is to transfer power and resources to grassroots…
Fundraising is a big part of any nonprofit’s work. But what happens when the relentless drive to get money and please donors comes at the expense of an organization’s core values? That’s the question C. Nathan Harris posed to the Oregon Food Bank two years ago when he was interviewing…
The healthcare system may be vast and complicated, but finding a way to work within it can supercharge a food bank’s ability to ease food insecurity. Second Harvest Heartland, the country’s seventh-largest food bank (by revenue) and the largest in Minnesota, has succeeded in integrating itself into the state’s healthcare…
To achieve its goal of ending food insecurity in Maine, Good Shepherd Food Bank is enlisting the help of broccoli. The food bank, Maine’s largest, is starting a produce-processing company called Harvesting Good that will offer frozen produce year round to retail and institutional customers. The goal of the company…
Food banking may never be the same again. After more than a year of being in crisis mode, food banks are settling into a new normal — meeting still-elevated need, but doing it more effectively than ever before thanks to 14 months of intense, pandemic-pressurized learning. Among the Covid-inspired innovations…